18/07/2008 Note: Supplementary Data Cubes were released to provide the relative standard errors associated with the published estimates.

NOTES

INTRODUCTION

This publication presents results from the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) Personal Fraud Survey, conducted throughout Australia during July to December 2007. This is the first national survey of personal fraud in Australia.

About the 2007-08 Multi-Purpose Household Survey (MPHS)

The Personal Fraud Survey was run as a module of the ABS Multi-Purpose Household Survey (MPHS). The MPHS is conducted throughout Australia as a supplement to the Labour Force Survey (LFS). One randomly selected person per household aged 15 years and over, was asked about their experiences of personal fraud, providing information about incidents that occurred over a twelve month period prior to the date of interview. Of the 16,100 private dwellings selected in the Personal Fraud Survey, 89% responded, resulting in a final sample of 14,320 persons.

Please refer to the Summary of Findings, Explanatory Notes and Technical Note for more detailed information about interpreting the results from the Personal Fraud Survey.

Supplementary Datacubes (cat. no. 4528.0) are expected to be released in mid-July 2008, providing values of the relative standard errors for the estimates provided in the existing publication tables.

ROUNDING

As estimates have been rounded, discrepancies may occur between totals and the sums of the component items. Published percentages are calculated prior to rounding, and therefore some discrepancy may occur between these percentages and those that may be calculated from the rounded figures.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

Development of this survey was undertaken in collaboration with experts from a range of research, regulatory, financial and consumer advocate agencies, for whom a key data need was to establish baseline prevalence information regarding selected personal frauds in the Australian community.

There are a variety of definitions of personal frauds. Those used in this survey are based on the main categories of personal frauds of interest, defined by Australian Government regulators and policy agencies, and state and territory Fair Trading agencies. The assistance of the Australasian Consumer Fraud Taskforce (ACFT) members in providing advice and clarification on definitional issues is gratefully acknowledged. Funding for this survey was also provided from most members of the Taskforce. A list of members of the ACFT can be found at Appendix 2.

INQUIRIES

For further information about these and related statistics, contact the National Information and Referral Service on 1300 135 070 or Soula Macfarlane on Melbourne (03) 9615 7374.